Paleoenvironmental setting and description of an estuarine oyster reef in the Eocene of Patagonia, southern Argentina

摘要

A middle Eocene Crassostrea sp. reef near Rio Turbio, southwestern Patagonia (Argentina), represents the earliest record of an oyster reef associated with estuarine facies in the southern hemisphere, and also one of the few known worldwide occurring in Paleogene rocks. The reef grew in an outer estuary environment subject to periodic changes in salinity and may have reached a maturing phase. The Rio Turbio reef - by its dimensions, geometry, and substrate lithology- would have been located in a tidal channel convergence area. This reef provides new evidence suggesting that estuaries served as refuges for Crassostrea populations allowing them to disperse into fully marine environments many times throughout the Cenozoic.